


oak and ash and thorn

by ruthlesslistener



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: BV decides to come over when Oro's in the middle of work and decides to stick around for a bit, Found Family, Gen, and so i took to writing this like some poor wretch jerked on the chain of an angry god, and then takes a liking to the songs he sings while he's at it, being BV in this case, dadmaster oro, i listened to some sea shanties and got smacked in the face with Inspiration, much to Oro's dismay, of course, pissy teenagers, said angry god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:21:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25951309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruthlesslistener/pseuds/ruthlesslistener
Summary: The wandering shadow came to him again, right in the middle of his home maintenance.This would be less of a problem if they didn't take such a shine to his singing voice.
Relationships: Broken Vessel | Lost Kin & Nailmaster Oro
Comments: 26
Kudos: 127





	oak and ash and thorn

**Author's Note:**

> Yew that is old in churchyard mould  
> He breedeth a mighty bow  
> Alder for shoes do wise men choose  
> And beech for cups also  
> But when you have killed and your bowl is spilled  
> And your shoes are clean outworn  
> Back ye must speed for all that ye need  
> To oak and ash and thorn  
> ~Old English folksong

The kid was back again. 

He caught the edge of their silhouette as they slunk into the hut, looking around for him- it was eerie, really, just how well they blended in with the shadows- but he was out repairing the windowsill, leaning against the wall, and so they did not see him. He eyed them as they wandered about, idly turning the clay over and over in his hands to warm it, but they still failed to catch a glimpse of his cape, peering into the depths of the hut rather than looking out the window.

Which was all well and good, really. He hadn’t any patience with their silent judgement today. Though they had stopped challenging him to duels after the first few fights (and how strong they had been, for something so small- not that he could be surprised by that, but their body had been deceptively soft, and had cut easily on the edges of his armour when they rammed into him), their haughty, dignified nature was not something that he wanted to deal with while his hands were covered in clay, ash, and what was probably hopper shit. They would just have to go find someone else to barter with for training; he was sure that his brothers would be eager enough to take them in. Sheo would appreciate their holier-than-thou attitude, thinking it a mark of honour, and softhearted Mato would be delighted to meet a child playing at being a knight, he just knew it. It would stave off his budding headache, if they would just-

...Ah fuck, they found him.

He hadn’t even _heard_ their footsteps, the ash muffling their footfalls despite crunching under his weight. Those fathomless dark eyes bored into his, empty and yet somehow demanding an explanation for his endeavors, their stupidly long cloak leaving trails in the grey-white rot behind them. Their nail gleamed on their back, old and battered as ever, but well-maintained; he had no idea where they were finding the oil for it, especially since they had so staunchly refused to pay the price for his nail art, but he supposed that they had their ways. There was an eerie regality to them, after all; the more he looked at them, the more he felt like he was looking at a relic of old Hallownest, something about the pale gleam of their mask and the sweep of their cape tugging at the bounds of his memories. Even though he never trailed behind Sheo when he went to go stare at the knights in the city, preferring to focus on his formwork, there was just...something about them that pulled at his thoughts, whispering for him to bow and salute them like he would with another nailmaster, or a knight of the Pale Court. They certainly looked out of place here, their claws half-sunk into the ash, their dark, serious gaze boring into him while he slathered sticky crap all over the cracks in his hut’s walls. 

Which was, frankly, quite ridiculous. They were what, barely coming into their proper teen molts? Still a kid, really, still not grown into their horns, still far too small and awkwardly proportioned to really do anything but strike a pose and demand his attention. Apprentice age at best, though they were a keen learner and had a knack for the art of war that nearly made him jealous. But they were certainly not someone that he should show any respect towards, especially after they had challenged him to a duel after he tried to charge them, like some offended purpleshell looking to preserve their honour. He wouldn’t take any shit from a child trying to play knight, no matter what uncanny skills they had lurking in that pale noggin.

“What do you want, kid? If it’s not money, then beat it. I don’t have time for the likes of you.” He pressed the last of his handful of clay into the wall, then brushed his palms together, reaching down for another handful. Already, the ash was beginning to cling to his palms, leaving that unpleasant oily feeling behind, but he couldn’t complain about that this time; mixed in with the clay, it produced a tough building material that held its own against the probing proboscis and legs of the hoppers, large and small. Might have something to do with the legend of a dying god or something. Either way, Oro didn’t care, as long as it kept the damned creatures out of his home.

An idea struck him then, and he glanced over at the silent wanderer standing beside him, hands tucked away somewhere beneath their overlong cloak. “Or you can help out a bit and try to work off the payment. I prefer geo, on principle, but if it gets me out of this blasted wind then I might be tempted to barter.”

They tilted their head at him, and then down to the bucket of clay at his feet. Their hand made an appearance from their cloak, scooping up a dollop on their claws, and they seemed to consider it for a moment, before subtly shaking their head and stepping back, a slight shiver shaking their horns as they tried to wipe the clay off their claws, onto his fence. If they had a face, they might have grimaced; the texture of it seemed to bother them more than the ash, for he caught the way that they tried to rub their hands together to get rid of the lingering feeling, their ragged cape swishing with the movements of their arms.

“Suit yourself,” he said- perhaps it was a good thing that they didn’t help after all, for their claws were wickedly sharp, and bound to put a _different_ set of holes in his wall if they weren’t careful enough. They certainly had put some holes in _him,_ in the off moments where their carefully-maintained suit of honour broke and they had lashed out with scratches and kicks, their hooked talons slashing through the gaps in his armour with ease. “But I will not teach you my arts unless you have the appropriate payment. You forfeit your chance with your refusal. Now, begone! Leave me to my repairs, I have better things to do than barter with you.”

 _There_ was the baleful stare he was expecting. For a creature devoid of a true face, they were awfully good at conveying their disappointment, even if it was ridiculous on someone who couldn’t have possibly hit their middle teen molt yet. 

At least they hadn’t drawn their nail on him- they’d done it for lesser offenses. Now they were just sitting and glowering at him, an offended aura wrapped around them like a cloak, while he rolled clay between his palms and tried not to think of how Sheo would laugh at him if he saw them sitting here glaring at him, as disappointed as Mato was when they grew into their teenage years and he had failed to shed his own shitty attitude. 

Well, if they weren’t going to go, then he was just going to ignore them altogether. They could take it or leave it; he knew that they would not draw their nail on him, with how rigidly they stuck to the honour code of the old, dead kingdom. He had work to do, and he would be damned if the strange wanderers the ruins coughed up were going to stop him from finishing his task- he wanted nothing more than to get out of these cold, biting winds and to brew himself a cup of strong tea, to return to his meditation and whet the blade of his mind with the silence. If he was followed by a clinging shadow too stubborn to leave alone, then so be it. They would learn nothing from him. 

He didn’t even know why they sought him out, anyways, and he didn’t care where they went when they left. Clearly they had other tasks at hand, given how long they were gone between visits. Clearly, they could take care of themselves, given how many times they had pattered into his hut dripping with infection and blood too light to match their own strange dark ichor. Maybe he had cursed himself with some wraith, by moving all the way out here- they had called it a place of death, where even gods came to die, but all he wanted was the solitude it had promised. Enraging some dark spirit had not been part of the plan.

Lost in his thoughts, he hardly noticed when he started to hum along to the working-songs that Sheo was so fond of singing, as he often did when he found himself busy with a task too mundane to demand his attention. Not until he noticed the kid start to sway along to the beat, their three long horns exaggerating their movement, freezing when he stopped to look at them.

"You like music, huh?" He asked, despite himself- it was so unusual that he simply couldn't think to keep his vow of silence, seeing this strange warrior act like, well...a child. They were such a solemn visitor (when not offended, anyways) that seeing them loosen up felt a bit...bizarre. “You can blame my brother for that one. I’m not usually a singer.”

Dark eyes bored into him, silently pleading for him to continue. They had relaxed at the sound of his voice, the claws of one hand dropping away from their cloak, though he did not think that they were embarrassed at enjoying his singing. Rather, they had tensed as if they had been caught doing something that they shouldn’t, their hand resting on the hilt of their nail in preparation for a fight, and once he stopped staring directly at them and went back to smearing mud on the walls, they relaxed. They did not seem to care about him watching them out of the corner of his eye- as long as he was not looking at them directly (and how strange, when they so often demanded it from him), they were alright.

Now they were giving him an expectant look, posture back to their ever-favorite formal knight stance. Like they saw no issue with him singing, even after he had specifically told them to fuck off so that he could enjoy the peace and quiet. Like they couldn't possibly understand why he wouldn't continue, like they couldn't fathom the idea of bugs not enjoying strange little shadowy teenagers listening to them while they worked, no matter how much said shadowy teenagers seemed to enjoy their singing.

He arched a brow at them, even if he knew that they couldn’t see it behind his mask. Maybe he _had_ cursed himself with some sort of enraged spirit, if their indignant hissyfits were settled with music. Even if it wasn’t very good, it seemed to do the trick for them, more than any halfhearted offers of food or advice had in the past. “I ought to pay you for listening to me, you know. If you’re going to bum around my house staring at me like this, then you might as well pay for my squandered time in some way.”

Something in the depths of their eyes flickered, a brief spark of light in the endless dark. They didn't even bristle at his comment that time, the usual cold set to their shoulders practically melted away by the weight of their interest- they just tilted their head at him, and swayed from side to side in the ash, before catching the motion and forcing themselves back into their still, stoic watch. 

Getting them to leave him alone seemed to be out of the question; they showed no signs of leaving, and he knew that if he tried to storm off, they would just follow him anyways (not that he could- great hoppers could seek out points of weakness with the accuracy of a hunting aspid, he _had_ to finish this if he wished to see another morning). And they certainly didn’t seem to have anything better to do themselves, if they were so insistent on watching him slap clay on a wall. 

They must have been bored shitless. Even the promise of a song shouldn't catch their interest like that; he was sure plenty of other bugs in the ruins sang as they worked, he knew he wasn't any good at it. The menderbugs in particular were known for their songs, and he recalled seeing some on the rare occasions he had to venture into the city for supplies, running away from his vast bulk and sour attitude. His raspy, low voice held no comparison to their synchronized tunes, often sung together as a sign of solidarity, while he was lucky to say more than a dozen words a week. To say he had barely any practice at it was more than a little generous-by all means, they should be running in the opposite direction, not leaning in closer, with a nearly pleading tilt to their head.

And he wasn’t going to try to beat them off with his nail, not when he knew the little shit would take it as a training opportunity rather than a warning. He'd learned that lesson the hard way. Scamming little shit.

So he wasn’t quite sure why he started singing again. Maybe it was how childish they looked, with their head tilted like that; maybe it was because he was in an oddly nostalgic mood, and singing the songs aloud let him focus past the dullness of the repairs. Or maybe he was hoping that he could scare them off with some off-tune hum or cracked note, slim though the chance may be. 

But either way, it wasn’t long before they started to sway along with the tempo. It wasn’t long before they started to bob their head to the beat, their curving horns barely a burden as he sang a song of fire and ash, and shorter still before they were clapping along with his words, the _slap_ of their palms oddly muffled, despite the way the chamber his hut rested in echoed with the sound of his singing. 

By the time he switched to a different song, one about ash and trees, they were full-on dancing, glowing wings flickering out from under their cloak, clearly enjoying every dip and swell of his voice. They had no training in it, that much was obvious, but their movements accented the rhythm perfectly, and there was such joy in them that he nearly halted again, mesmerized by the sight of them acting with such blatant happiness. Gone was the cold, formal knight of the ruins- the wandering shadow before him could have been anyone’s apprentice, shamelessly prancing around to the music at a formal event, or a schoolbug at their first true dance, losing themselves in the euphoria of their growing-up party. Gone was the teenager who had the gall to bicker with him over honour, in their own silent manner, gone was the lone shadow that paced through his hut like a lost creature searching for a place to belong. Now they were just another survivor of the fall, a relic of a long-lost time, just like the rest of them. 

It was certainly not something he had ever expected to see, after all the other times they met and argued and fought over the smallest of grievances.

He almost didn’t want to stop.

But he was done repairing his wall, and his bucket was empty of clay. So he let the song trail slowly to an end, echoed only by the cavern walls around them, and watched as their six glimmering wings flared out from under their cloak with a flash of white light, pitch-dark claws stretching up towards the sky as they froze in place. He had to blink away dark spots on his vision afterwards, eyes aching from the light, but they didn’t seem to notice his attention on them at all, their chest heaving with exertion as they slowly came out of their pose, the light of their wings fading enough to reveal the delicate, spiderweb patterns on them as they folded away again. And when they looked at him, jumping a bit at his attention, their dark eyes met his gaze with an almost rebellious stare, as if daring him to say something about their actions. Like they thought he was going to be cruel, or tell them that they had stepped out of line, for daring to dance and be happy instead of a stern, serious knight. 

“So you _do_ like music,” he said, in lieu of all the other things he wished to say- they crowded on his tongue, too gentle and too awestruck to have a place here, to fit with the standards he gave himself. “And dancing, too.”

They tilted their head at him, chest still heaving enough for their breathing to be noticeable, but did not answer. They never did, silent as the fall of the ash around him, but the look they gave him was answer enough, their usual formality dissipated by their playful behavior. If they thought him asking was odd, they made no indication of it, merely focusing on catching their breath as he brushed the clay off his palms and smoothed a fresh layer of ash over the new repair, ensuring that it dried properly. Their joyful energy had not yet faded, their happiness oddly infectious as they bounced from one leg to another, and it did strange things to his chest as he picked up the bucket and watched them slowly wind down from their high, settling back into their calm, regal pose from before.

“And you didn’t even pay me for it,” he grumbled, trying his best to sound gruff and uncaring; he lost sight of them as he turned to trudge back to the house, but didn’t stop talking, knowing from past experience that they would be following right behind him. They had not earned the nickname 'wandering shadow' for nothing. “Tch, figures. I came to the edge of the world for solitude, traveler, not to act like a walking circus. I don’t even know your name.”

A click from behind him. It could have been anything- a rock falling off the cliffs, a slate from his hut slipping free- it certainly didn’t sound organic, or like it came from his unusually-silent companion. And they were not the type to catch his attention with mundane sounds, not when they were fast enough to dash in front of him, and stubborn enough to keep running back into his field of vision whenever he tried to look away to ignore them. Such a sound was easily dismissed.

But something about the tone caught his attention. He glanced over his shoulder, raising a brow at the small frame trudging behind him, and the wandering shadow tilted their head at him again, making that clicking noise again with... _something._ He wasn’t sure if it was from their throat or their chest, or if they were tapping their claws together under their cloak; either way, they didn’t make it again, with his attention successfully acquired. Nor did they need to.

For the next thing they did was tilt their head and draw in their breath and make a _noise,_ a strange, whispering shriek that echoed from the cavern walls around them; it came not from their throat, or from their hidden mouth, but from all around them, like they had taken the wind and its memories of creaking trees and wailing storms and asked it to echo it back for them. And then, when he stared and stared and made no sound of his own, they squared their shoulders, looked directly at him, and echoed- _in his voice, gods be damned-_ one of the words from the song he had just sung to them, sighed out from the rock around them as if time itself had been reversed. As if the world had swallowed his voice up and yielded it back to them on their command, to use for whatever purpose they wished.

_Thorn._

He stared at them for a moment longer, mouth dry, before closing it and swallowing hard. So the kid had magic. He should have guessed from the bright white wings, the glow around them. They’d never used it around him before now, but then again, there were probably rules of conduct around wielding it in combat that he didn’t know of- Hallownest had been a city of magic and Soul, after all. It had practically been a nest for magicians, a spawning grounds for the magically gifted that he had not been a part of. If that was the city of their birth, he shouldn’t be so surprised they could work it, even if he was pretty damn sure that that particular trick was _not_ soul-based. 

...Eh. He guessed that he couldn’t begrudge them for using it to give themselves a voice; he knew they held no vow of silence, that it was not needed. All the little hisses and growls they made at him during spars were hardly more than their breath whistling through their lungs, rattling in their throat instead of buzzing out with any proper force. If they wanted to use their little trick instead of writing or signing their name like a normal bug, then he really had no right to complain about it. 

Especially since he had fallen asleep during his sign language classes.

“Is that it? _Thorn?_ ” He placed a little more emphasis on it than what was strictly necessary, trying to sound more disgusted than intrigued. It fit them well enough- he could see why they were named such, what with their long nail and the dingy teal of their cloak and everything about their general demeanor. “Seems a bit anticlimactic. Is that a title, or a nickname, or your real name? If I tried to charge anything to your theoretical bank account, would the banker know who I was talking about, or would they call me light-maddened and kick me out?”

The kid- _Thorn,_ he supposed- gave him an impatient look, and then shrugged. They paced around him, leaving a trail of faint clawprints by his heavy, deep ones, then ran a hand down his doorframe and appeared to ponder his question. He crossed his arms and watched them, incapable of passing by with their nail hilt in his way, but it seemed like they were just focusing on their next spell, because the voice that they hit him with next was not his own, but that of a young woman’s- not an echo, but a memory.

_You are a thorn in my side, lost warrior of Hallownest! Cast your misguided chase aside, and sting me no longer!_

The voice cut off with a terrifying, rasping hiss- no, _two_ , a spider’s sibilant snarl rattling alongside something that made the short fur around the back of Oro’s neck stand on end. Rasping and primal it was, stirring deep in the recesses of his mind, speaking of abandoned dark things, whispering of monsters in the deep, before Thorn broke off the spell, rubbing the back of their head and hunching their shoulders. 

“Please tell me that wasn’t you.” He had no idea who the girl’s voice belonged to, but he had no desire to meet its owner, spider status be damned. There had been something _else_ in that hiss that would not be out of place among the legends spun around the Kingdom’s Edge. But that could not hold a candle to the voice that had answered back, that voice that was not a voice, but something much closer to a nightmare incarnate.

Or, no, that was inaccurate. The _darkness_ incarnate.

(By the Wyrm, if this isolation was turning him as poetic as Sheo, he would never be able to forgive himself for it.)

Thorn studiously avoided his attention for a moment, turning away to watch the falling ash. It moved them far enough to the side for him to shove past them, his arm clipping against theirs, and the shock of just how _cold_ they were made him shiver a bit harder than what was strictly necessary, even if he knew, logically, that they were still no match for him. No matter how skilled they were, or how tirelessly they worked, they were still just some dumbshit teenager who wanted to play-act being a knight. Whatever deranged hissing they could make with their fucked-up magic voice wouldn’t change the fact that he had beaten them before, and could beat them again. 

And it also wasn’t changing the fact that they were currently loitering in his doorway again, just like the first time that they met each other, with the sole exception that they were currently giving him a thoughtful stare rather than one full of righteous anger and indignation.

“Are you just going to stand there like some sort of feral child?” He called to them, as he banged down the clay bucket and dipped his hands in the washbasin, with perhaps a little more force than necessary. The headache he’d been hoping to stave off with fresh air had come back in full force, stabbing hot nails just behind his eyes, and he hadn’t the patience for them staring at him when he was busy cleaning and cursing and brewing his special migraine tea. Nor did he want them around when he started, for that would mean that they’d expect a mug of their own, and he had no desire to waste some of his leaves when he was pretty damn sure that they’d dislike the taste anyways. “You’ve loitered here long enough. Pay me the geo for my nail art, or begone with you.”

As usual, they refused payment, not even drawing forth a single geo. But instead of the usual offended stare boring into his back, this time they surprised him; they waited until he finished his task to catch his attention, then curled one hand into a fist and thumped it against their thorax, giving him a shallow bow. 

It was the bow of thanks, from one great warrior to another, and it was done in perfect form despite all the bugs that had kept it having long since passed on. Despite all the history books that had detailed it shredded to pieces by the light-maddened, the journals speaking of it shattered by any and all infected that found it. He wouldn’t have recognized it, but for Sheo’s enthusiastic yammering- now that he was on the receiving end, he found himself stunned into silence, staring after his strange little shadow with soap suds stuck to his claws and building clay smeared up to his elbows. 

Luckily, Thorn did not seem to expect anything in return. After they straightened back up to their usual unimpressive height, all they gave him was a single nod, before turning and heading back out into the flurry of ash without another gesture. And they were gone before he could even reach the doorway, swallowed by the whirling rot and the shadowy cliffsides- not that he would have called out for them, not after specifically trying to send them away, but the very fact that they could just...disappear like that made his head whirl. He wasn’t quite sure if he liked it, and that pissed him off on a frankly unreasonable level.

(He had not looked after them, before. He had merely sat and ignored them and meditated on and on and on until their stinging regard stopped bothering him, and always, _always,_ when he had looked up, they were gone.)

(And he had _liked it._ )

“What a strange kid,” he muttered to himself, because thinking about the weird mess of emotions rolling about like a downed boofly would just make his headache worse. He had no time to deal with the little sparks of guilt and the odd desire to call them back to him under all the irritation, not with his bucket all mucky and a migraine making the pale grey-white of Kingdom’s Edge growing more and more painful to look at. 

No, he would deal with that later, when it was time for him to meditate. For now, he had to focus on getting this blasted bucket clean- he needed it for lugging water, after all, and for pretty much everything else under the caverns. The last thing that he needed was to waste his time thinking about some prickly little grub running about Hallownest, playing at being some noble knight with a great, important cause; he had better things to be doing than fussing over errant children, even if said children hissed like death and had skills and knowledge far beyond what any ordinary ruins-child should. Things like working on his forms and keeping his wits keen, training to make himself better than he already was. Things that were _not_ worrying about some lost child; it was Mato’s goal to be a father, after all, not his. He didn’t need to be caught fussing over any squibs, even if he knew that Mato would never break his silent vigil from his home at the very top of the world, as far away from him as he could get without leaving Hallownest altogether. 

So he rinsed his bucket and brewed his tea, and studiously did not think of the strange wanderer who told him their name in broken echoes and faded memories. He did not think of them as he brewed his tea and dimmed the lights, and by the time his headache had somewhat abated, he had nearly wiped them from his mind altogether. 

And yet.

_And yet._

Despite all his distractions and attempts to meditate it away, to shove it to the same isolated corner of his mind where he kept his family and their strife tucked aside, unwanted and unbothered.

The memory of them dancing lingered with him through the rest of the day. 

**Author's Note:**

> Capture the wild things and bring them in line  
> And own what was never your right to confine  
> The lives and the loves and the songs are what matters  
> I'll tend to the flame; you can worship the ashes
> 
> Do you feel heavy? Your eyes drop with grief  
> Your spirit is wild and your suffering is brief  
> So never you buckle and bend to the masses  
> I'll tend to the flame; you can worship the ashes  
> ~Ashes, The Longest Johns


End file.
